


The Night Before Christmas

by MsNyx



Category: Christmas Tales & Traditions, The Night Before Christmas - Clement Clarke Moore
Genre: Australian Christmas, Australian summer, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Music, Christmas Presents, Christmas Smut, F/M, Many shameless Christmas puns, hot Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:15:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21933571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsNyx/pseuds/MsNyx
Summary: 'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…except Alex, to whom sleep had not come.~~~Here's what happens if you stay up too late on Christmas Eve coz you're feeling a bit cynical about Christmas and then you sing the wrong (right) Christmas song and catch Someone's attention...
Relationships: Santa Claus/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 25
Collections: Favorite





	The Night Before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…except Alex, to whom sleep had not come. It was always like this, whenever she flew home for Christmas. Swapping the grey dreariness of London in December for the heat of an Australian summer was great for getting a midwinter tan, but it played havoc with her sleep. So she sat, curled up on the sofa in the lounge room of her sister’s North Sydney house, drinking left-over eggnog and staring morosely at the overstuffed stockings and piles of presents awaiting her nieces’ and nephew’s attention in the morning.

Jen’s husband, Bruce, had dutifully quaffed the beer left out for Santa. Jen had taken care of the shortbread, leaving a few crumbs artfully scattered over the plate. Alex had volunteered to be responsible for the carrots left out for the reindeer, munching away until only stubs were left.

Alex took another sip of eggnog. So there it was. Between the three of them they had performed the standard Christmas magic for the kids. And that was it, really, wasn’t it? Forget the spangled, soft-focus pap sold to the Western World by Hollywood. Christmas magic boiled down to parents and relatives stuffing stockings and scoffing the Santa snacks.

She wasn’t sure why she felt so melancholy this year. She wriggled over a little on the couch and grabbed the remote for the stereo, and turned it on softly. Eartha Kitt’s grown-up-girly voice gently filled the room with its ticklish tones.

“Santa, baby,” murmured Alex softly to the music, “hurry down the chimney to me.”

There was a scuffle and a thump. Alex stared as a small shower of dust fell from the chimney onto the group of unlit candles Jen had artfully arranged in the fireplace. _Possums,_ thought Alex in alarm.

Something that looked nothing like a possum and a hell of a lot like a steel capped boot followed the soot and kicked over the candles.

“Shit,” said a muffled voice, and a second boot followed.

Alex sat frozen bolt upright on the couch, eggnog in one hand, remote in the other.

Legs followed the boots, dressed in what appeared to be heavy-duty, fire-fighting-gauge canvas. Red, of course. Then…

There were more scrapes and grunts, and suddenly a man was emerging from the chimney. Alex was only vaguely aware that her mouth was hanging open. Her brain simply refused to compute the sight in front of her.

There were the black boots (not shiny though) and the red suit (soot stained, jacket off and flung over a shoulder) and even the white beard (more of an iron-grey actually, and quite stylishly close-cropped). But, it couldn’t be…

“That’s my favourite Christmas carol,” he said, stepping out of the fireplace and straightening up.

Alex just sat and stared.

He stared back, eyebrows raised, until apparently realising she was pretty much immobilised with shock and not going to respond. Then he glanced down at the empty plate and glass on the hearth, and his face turned sorrowful.

“Ah,” he said sadly, “another household of unbelievers.”

Alex’s adrenal gland suddenly remembered its job, and she scrambled backwards on the couch, dropping the remote and nearly slopping eggnog over herself.

“Wh-who—?” she gasped, going cold and hot with shock. “Are you some kind of burglar?”

“No, sweetheart,” he said, unslinging the jacket from his shoulder and with it a canvas bag, and dropping them on the hearth. “I’m the man.” He dusted himself off. Alex nearly voiced an irrational protest at soot being sprinkled all over her sister’s immaculate carpet, but as he brushed the black from his pants, it just seemed to vanish.

“You’re the who?” she asked again, heart hammering.

“Santa, baby,” he said, with a slow grin.

“You’re kidding,” she said shortly.

“Hey,” he said, holding his arms wide. “Look at me. I’ve just come down your chimney. Who the hell else am I going to be?”

Alex looked. In addition to the aforementioned items, he was also wearing a navy singlet, the kind builders wore. And that was it. Honestly, if she’d seen him in the street she would have thought he was a fireman. He was pretty built, too. No belly like a bowl full of jelly here. That – contours visible under the singlet that clung to his tanned skin – was a six pack.

“No,” said Alex flatly.

He grinned at her, and winked.

“Oh, yes,” he said.

Then he bent down and picked up the canvas bag. Out of it he pulled a high-bounce rubber ball and a packet of AA batteries. At the sight of the ball, Alex’s stomach did a weird sort of backflip.

“That’s…” she said, pointing at the ball. The man halted in the act of shoving it into Isaac’s stocking. He turned his head to look at her and raised an eyebrow.

“Isaac wanted one of those!” said Alex. “They’re all the rage at school! I was going to get him one, but—”

“But?” asked the stranger, coolly.

“I just remembered I forgot…” said Alex weakly, her head beginning to spin.

“Yep,” said the stranger and shoved the items in. “And no one remembered to buy the batteries for the Nerf gun. But that’s what I’m here for, hey.”

He reached back into his bag and pulled out a tiny, cutesy plastic animal-thing that Alex recognised from seeing similar ones at supermarket checkouts. It was the kind of thing Jen refused to waste money on, but which was likely to be hugely popular amongst Talia’s friends. He held it up for a moment so she could see it, then stuffed it into Talia’s stocking.

Ella, the oldest, got a bottle of bright pink nail polish.

“Hey!” said Alex sharply, “I’m going to get blamed for that!”

“You can tell the truth and say it must have been Santa,” he said, straightening up.

“Oh and Jen is going to believe me,” said Alex in defeat.

“Ah well, that’s the thing, isn’t it,” said the stranger looking a little sad again. “No one really believes anymore.” He flashed her a wry smile. “It makes my job a whole lot easier, of course. I just bring the little things that have been forgotten now. But,” and he looked forlornly down at the empty plate and beer bottle at his feet. “It does mean there’s not so many treats left out, these days.” He sighed, then brightened, slapping his washboard stomach.

“Makes it easier to stay in shape, though!”

Alex caught herself staring openly at his strong, lean arms and broad shoulders. She blinked and looked away, going pink. He’d seen her looking and was grinning at her again.

“Santa’s supposed to be old,” she objected. “You can’t be more than forty-five. Fifty, tops.”

“Oh, I’m older than I look,” he said, staring at her intently.

“How did you get down the chimney?” she demanded. He was not going to bamboozle her into thinking he was anything other than a burglar... Who came prepared with just the right gifts for her sister’s kids…

“Magic,” he said softly. She noticed his eyes were bright, bright blue.

“I’m supposed to believe that?” she protested.

He shrugged. “It’d be nice,” he said.

Alex snorted. “I’m sure you think so,” she snapped.

A resigned look crossed his face.

“OK, then. See ya, Christmas Grinch.” He bent down to pick up the crumpled jacket at his feet and stepped back towards the fireplace.

“You’re not going back up there, are you?” she asked incredulously.

“Pretty much,” he sighed. He ducked his head under the mantelpiece.

Alex hesitated, then—

“Look,” she said, relenting slightly. “Do you want a drink before you go?”

Still crouched over in the fireplace, he turned his twinkling blue gaze upon her. _Hot damn_ , she thought, _here is a man whose knee I’d happily sit on…_

“There’s loads of eggnog left,” she said.

He made a face. “Any more of those?” he asked, nudging the empty beer bottle with his toe.

“Sure, why not?” said Alex. She put her own drink back on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to grab a cold longneck from the fridge. On the way, she caught her reflection in the kitchen window. _Oh shit…_

All dressed for bed on a Sydney summer night, Alex was wearing nothing but a shoestring tank top and very short boxers. Like, literally nothing. In response to her sudden consciousness of the – er – informal state of her attire, she felt her nipples perk up. _Oh SHIT_ , she thought, feeling her face get hot. Partly to give her some actual physical cover, she grabbed the whole six-pack-minus-one from the fridge and a couple of half-empty bowls of nuts and chips off the kitchen counter.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” commented The Man as she re-entered the lounge. She felt herself go pink again as she deposited the beer and snacks on the coffee table and grabbed her eggnog and sipped it to cover her confusion. He helped himself to a beer, opened it using his jacket to shield his hand, then held the bottle out towards her.

“Bottoms up,” he grinned. “Merry Christmas. Ho ho ho.”

Alex shook her head. “Unconvincing,” she told him quellingly. But she held out her glass for him to clink, before snugging back down on the couch.

“So,” she said, curiosity starting to get the better of her. “Say I go with this whole _Santa_ thing, what do you do for the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year?”

“Ah,” he said, looking down at her with undisguised interest. “Well, as you can see, I don’t make much of it myself anymore.” He waved his hand towards the stockings stuffed with clearly TM’ed toys. “So a lot less banging away in the workshop now, and a lot more negotiating contracts with international toy wholesalers.” Alex’s mouth fell open again. He regarded her reaction with amusement.

“I’ve become a bit of a jet-setter,” he remarked.

“Jet-setter?” asked Alex. “What about the reindeer?” She couldn’t help looking at the ceiling as she spoke. He shook his head.

“Hopeless anywhere out of the far northern hemisphere,” he said. “Can’t even use ‘em in London these days. You want to know about global warming? Ask _me_. Nah. Tried a bunch of different stuff over the years. Pinched an idea out of Harry Potter and I ride a flying motorbike now.”

“No shit?” asked Alex, dimly aware that he must be starting to think the muscles in her jaw were defective, her mouth hung open in his presence so often. She shook her head to dispel the fuzziness she was experiencing.

“And those international contracts? Who’s name are they in? I can’t see a bunch of businessmen happily signing up with Santa Claus.”

He grinned down at her again. “Nope,” he said. “I have a couple of different names, but I usually go with Nico Santo. You can call me Nic.”

“Nic,” she tested the name out. It suited him. She held her hand out. “I’m—”

“Alex,” he said. “I know. I’ve been checking my list.”

Alex narrowed her eyes.

“Naughty or nice?” she asked, before she could stop herself. _Dammit, I am flirting with Santa!_ she berated herself.

“Oho,” he said, taking a pull from the beer, his sexy blue eyes twinkling at her.

“What about you?” she asked, a thought suddenly occurring to her. “I mean, _if_ you are who you say you are. But does anyone give you gifts?”

“Occasionally,” he said, his mouth twitching up into a half smile. Despite the mildness of his tone, Alex was sure he was being suggestive. To her mortification her body responded to his charisma and she quickly crossed her arms to hide the evidence.

“Here.” He sat down on the other end of the couch and put his beer down then held out his hands. “Give me your foot.” Alex stared at him for a moment, before unfolding one leg from underneath herself and stretching it out towards him. He looked at it appreciatively and began working his thumbs into the sole of her foot.

“Oh, God,” murmured Alex in sudden bliss. “I love a foot massage.”

“I know,” said Nic.

It was absolute heaven. He worked the ball, heel and arch, each of her toes and the soft spaces in between and underneath. When her foot felt like a soft, squidgy lump of plasticine, he gently put it aside and reached out for her other foot. Blissfully she put it into his hands.

He leaned back on the arm of the chair, facing her as she stretched out on the couch, the foot he’d just massaged lying against his hip. Good as the massage was, Alex began to become aware of the warmth of his skin through his canvas pants. She looked from her foot, up the well-toned planes of his chest, then to his face. He was watching her, eyes still twinkling suggestively, an amused quirk to one of his eyebrows. He was really good-looking.

“So, then, Santa Nic,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and casual. “What do you want for Christmas?”

“Oh,” he said, the intensity of his gaze giving lie to the nonchalant shrug of his shoulder, “maybe just to find a yummy treat in somebody’s lounge room tonight.”

Alex began to tingle all over.

“What kind of yummy treat?” she asked a little breathlessly. Then, realising how imbecilic she must have sounded, tried to be witty. “You’re not like vegan or allergic to nuts or anything?”

“Oh no,” he said, “definitely a carnivore.” He bent his head and began to suck her toes. Alex nearly melted into the suedette couch.

“Well…then…Nic…” she said, even more breathlessly and moved her free foot into his lap. The shapes her foot found in his lap were even more unambiguous than the shapes of his abs under his singlet. Nic gave a muffled grunt as she explored the ridge of his hard-on with her bare foot. He slid his hands up her calf and then her thigh, caressing her skin with his blunt, strong fingers.

Then he released her foot with its damp, blissed-out toes, and leaned towards her, running his hand up her leg and hooking a finger into the crotch of her boxer shorts. Alex jumped as his knuckle grazed her bare labia.

“Omigod,” she moaned, a second before he pulled. The satin boxers slid down her legs and Nic tossed them away. She looked up at Nic. His blue eyes bore into hers and his grin was nothing short of wolfish.

“Now that looks yummy,” he said, moving to lean over her. He slid one hand under her butt cheek and pulled her closer. Alex squeaked as her legs buckled and her knees parted, but Nic was suddenly kissing her, his lips firm and sure, his warm mouth carrying the malt tang of the beer he’d abandoned.

Alex was on fire. The weight of him on top of her was delicious, and the rough scrape of his canvas pants over the skin of her belly sent ripples of warmth down to her toes. Her nipples felt like hot pebbles where he pressed down upon them. She wound one arm about his neck and sank her fingers into his hair. Nic moaned into her mouth. She could feel the hard bar of his cock pressing into her hip.

“No fair,” she panted, when he stopped kissing her for a moment to draw breath. “I’m half-naked and you still have all your kit on.” Wordlessly he released her butt cheek and dragged his singlet up out of his pants. Alex clawed at it, helping him pull it up and over his head. Now his chest was bare, his skin against hers. She could run her hands down his back and feel the muscles bunch under his skin as he moved over her. Glorious.

He bent back over her and kissed her again, then moved lower, his teeth grazing her jaw, her earlobe, down the side of her throat. One of his hands cupped her breast for a moment, and she could feel the point of her nipple pressing into his palm. He dragged her tank top up over her breasts, then bent his mouth to them.

Alex moaned. His beard was deliciously rough over her tender skin. Such a contrast to the melting warmth of his mouth and tongue. She had a brief sensory fantasy about what it might feel like were he to use his mouth…elsewhere…and moaned again.

Nic came up for air and looked down at her, grinning crookedly, his blue eyes electric. Clearly he was enjoying himself. He propped himself up on one elbow whilst he tweaked her nipple with the other hand. Alex’s heart was pounding and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. She was seriously worried she was going to create an unexplainable wet patch on her sister’s couch.

“Now, I know it’s more traditional for young ladies to sit on my knee,” he said, leaning forward to growl in her ear. “But I want you to sit on my face, Alex.”

“What?” she gasped. He bent to kiss her again, then sat up, pulling her with him, onto his lap. Before she had really worked out what was happening, he was sliding down beneath her and she had to let go of him and hang onto the arm of the sofa. Half in a state of shock, she looked down to see his bright blue eyes twinkling up at her as he slid beneath her legs. Then she felt his strong hands spread her sex apart, and moments later his tongue teasing her critical point of pleasure.

“Oh God,” she moaned softly, as his tongue slid lower, exploring her folds, circling, dipping, delving, tasting every crevice, before returning to her clit and getting down to business. She squirmed in delight at the building sensation in her sex and the roughness of his beard as it abraded the sensitive skin of her labia. Her whole body was rocked with the delicious sensations he was causing and she was so focussed on what he was doing between her legs, that if her sister’s whole family had walked into the lounge room singing _Good King Wenceslas_ , she wouldn’t have noticed.

Alex bit her lip, to stop herself crying out loud. She would have stuffed one of her own hands into her mouth to muffle the sounds that were trying to come out, except that when she tried to let go of the arm of the couch she overbalanced. Nic was definitely doing weird things to her equilibrium.

Then, somewhere amidst the red haze obscuring her vision, Alex had a brainwave.

“Nic, stop!” she panted, wriggling out of his grasp. His face emerged from between her thighs.

“Really?” he asked. His face was damp.

“Wait,” she said, pulling free of his grasp. She wiggled off him, then got back on, facing the other way.

“Hallelujah,” she heard him murmur behind her.

She got to work on his belt. A big, thick, black leather thing with a large silver buckle. She shrugged, smiling. She remembered that from the pictures. But underneath…

The belt undone, she made short work of his pants and then uttered a small private _hallelujah_ of her own when his beautiful cock sprang free. Immediately she bent forward and took it into her mouth, running her tongue around the head, sucking on it hard and then drawing it in as far as she could. Behind her, Nic groaned deeply.

Alex pulled back, then plunged it back into her mouth, sliding her tongue hard over the head as she did so, and Nic groaned again. Alex felt him pull her butt cheeks apart hard, and his tongue was once again questing into her sex, rougher and more urgently this time. Alex let herself moan, confident the sound was well muffled this time.

Alex lost herself in suckling on his lovely cock, in and out, tonguing the head and the base, seeing how deep and how long she could take it in. She had his balls in her hand, playing with them as she played with his cock, stroking and squeezing. His cock was _so_ hard... And all the time his tongue, his delicious tongue…

“Alex,” said Nic unsteadily after a while, coming up for air. “Alex—”

Alex slowly let his cock slide from her mouth, then sat up.

“Time to turn around again, sweetheart,” said Nic.

“O-K, if you want,” said Alex, arching her back and showing him what he would be missing out on. Nic groaned.

“That is some tail, darlin’,” he said dryly, caressing her butt cheeks, then giving them a playful slap. “But it’s still a couple of minutes to midnight.”

“What? You turn into a pumpkin?” said Alex, getting herself up. “I thought that was a different fairy tale.” Nic grinned (Alex wanted to melt) and sat up.

“Nope,” he said, that wolfish look back on his face. “I just didn’t want Christmas to come early. _Now_ come and sit on my lap, sweetheart.”

He pulled her back down to straddle his lap, then lifted her up until she felt the blunt head of his cock brushing the lips of her sex.

“Oh God,” she whimpered in anticipation, then “Oh my God!” as he pulled her down and his cock slid up inside her. She rocked as their hips locked together. The length of him butted up against her cervix and caused a new wave of pleasure to rush over her, hot, then cold, then hot again.

“Oh, baby,” he moaned into her hair, pulling her tight against him. Alex couldn’t bear it. She grabbed the back of the couch and began to grind her hips into his, crushing her clit against his pubic bone with every thrust.

Maybe it was magic, or possibly just good timing. But as the parlour clock on Jen’s mantelpiece began to chime the strokes of midnight, Alex’s orgasm broke over her. Starting in her toes, it rushed up her body and took inexorable hold of her, gripping her body in spasm after spasm of delirious release. Nic pulled her down hard, thrusting into her as he came, his own guttural grunts in absurd contrast to the tinny bell-chimes of the prissy little clock.

“Oh my God,” said Alex, a little while later, when she could eventually speak. She was still sagged against Nic, enjoying the thud of his heart next to hers, and the shine of sweat on his skin. “Well, that was…unexpected.”

“That was very, very nice,” said Nic, cupping her breasts together in his hands and looking down at them appreciatively.

“I suppose you have to go now,” said Alex, a little sadly.

Nic shrugged. “Busy night. The busiest,” he said.

“Oh well,” said Alex, feeling a bit forlorn. She rolled off him and tugged her tank top down, then started looking around for her boxer shorts. She saw them on an armchair a few feet away and crawled to the end of the couch, leaning over the arm to get them. When she turned back around, Nic was staring avidly at her butt.

“You have the sweetest arse, there, Alex,” he said warmly. “I could look at it all night, I tell ya. But I have to think of the kiddies.”

“Yes, alright. The kids,” said Alex resignedly. “I’m thinking of the kids.” Then abruptly, she asked “Do you think you’ll get any more tail tonight?”

Nic paused in the middle of buckling his belt and looked over at her, laughter sparking in his gorgeous blue eyes.

“I thought I mentioned how few treats Santa gets these days,” he said, reaching over and pulling her back onto his lap. He grabbed the boxer shorts out of her hands and threw them across the room again. “No one’s called me for ages.”

“I called you?” asked Alex.

“Santa, baby, come on down the chimney…” sang Nic softly. “I was four suburbs over when I heard that. Gonna be a bunch of kids who have to wait to play with their battery-powereds tomorrow.”

“I’m going to be a bit more careful about which Christmas carols I sing from now on,” said Alex warily.

“You better believe it,” said Nic. He slid his hand between her thighs and Alex felt two of his fingers entering her. His thumb pushed between her folds and onto her sensitised clit and she moaned.

“Now you,” said Nic into her ear, his beard tickling her as his fingers fucked her slowly, “need to go straight to bed. You know what happens to naughty girls who stay up too late on Christmas Eve.”

“What?” murmured Alex incoherently. Incredibly, another orgasm was building in her loins. There was a good chance this guy _was_ magic.

“They don’t get any presents,” whispered Nic, following this up with a nibble of her earlobe, and a string of love bites down her neck. Alex felt the muscles of her sex clamp down over his fingers as his wicked thumb sent another spike of pleasure singing through her body. She had to bury her head in his shoulder to keep from crying out loud.

“I’ve already had mine,” she gasped, when the waves of her climax had abated.

“Be a good girl and you might get more presents in the morning,” he said.

A few minutes later he was shrugging back into his jacket and picking up his sack. He ducked back under the mantelpiece and crouched in Jen’s fireplace. “See you, Alex.”

She watched as he straightened up inside the fireplace, then there was a grunt and some scuffling, and his boots disappeared the way they’d come.

“Wait!” she called out, suddenly remembering something. “Do you do Christmas in July?”

#

The next morning, Alex had mostly managed to convince herself it had been an extremely enjoyable dream—until, that is, Jen berated her over breakfast for leaving the unopened beers out of the fridge.

“I didn’t think you even drank that stuff,” she said.

When the kids began to empty their stockings, Alex found herself feeling increasingly dizzy. The high-bounce ball and the small cutesy animal-thing she could gloss over. But when Ella pulled the lolly-pink nail polish out of her stocking, she knew she hadn’t dreamed it.

“Thanks Aunty Alex,” said Ella. Jen looked poison at her. Alex held her hands up.

“Cross my heart and hope to die, that was _not_ me,” she said defensively.

“Don’t look at me,” said Bruce quickly. “It would never have even occurred to me to buy it.”

“Who else then?” snapped Jen, who clearly had visions dancing in her head of shocking pink splashes adorning her new crème brûlée pure merino carpet.

“Santa?” suggested Alex weakly.

“Oh God, Aunty Al,” said Ella, _so_ grown up. “Santa’s not real.”

_“Ella_ ,” hissed Jen, as Talia turned wide brown eyes on her big sister and aunt.

“But how do these presents get here, then?” she demanded. “Mum and Dad would _never_ buy all those for us.” She paused. “Well, Daddy might. But Mum would never let him!”

The look exchanged between Jen and Bruce was eloquent.

“Aunty Alex, do _you_ think Santa’s real?” asked Talia, still not one hundred per cent mollified.

“Oh yes, I do,” said Alex, feeling suddenly warm. “I absolutely do.”

“Oh look,” said Jen suddenly, “we missed one.” She plucked a red envelope from where it had been tucked into the branches of the super-deluxe, snow-sprinkled, fake tree. “Hey, it’s for you, Alex.”

Alex felt a tiny shock of electricity as Jen handed her the envelope. She hadn’t put it there. And the only stuff Jen and Bruce put around the tree for her were things from themselves and the kids.

Hands shaking slightly, she tore open the top of the envelope. Inside was a printout of a holiday itinerary in her name. Plane ticket to Copenhagen. Five nights in a five star. She went hot and cold and nearly dropped it. As she trembled, another slip of paper shook free and fluttered to the floor.

“Here Aunty Alex,” said Ella, grabbing it and handing it to her.

_Merry Christmas Alex,_ it read. _Much as I’m a fan of Christmas in July, I don’t think I can wait that long. New Year’s in Copenhagen? Nic._


End file.
